Monochrome GT4 Australia held its double Qualifying session on Saturday morning with all 27 cars getting on the track to book their spots for the two races at GT Festival Sandown.
Despite only being qualifying, there was plenty of strategy to occur throughout the two 15-minute sessions as well as a number of interesting battles for pole position.
Silver
It was the battle of the McLaren and Ford in both of the Silver Cup’s Qualifying sessions as Rylan Gray put the Miedecke Motorsport with Lubrimaxx Ford Mustang GT4 on pole in Qualifying 1, before Max Geoghegan secured Qualifying 2 pole position in the Method Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4.
Qualifying 1 proved a thrilling affair as a number of teams went with different tyre strategies – a number of which went with slicks and others wets, but in the end it was Gray who took out top spot thanks to a lightning-quick lap of 1m16.839s after the chequered flag was waved.
The pole-sitting lap proved more than six tenths faster than the next best driver in Ashley Seward Motorsport’s Cody Burcher in the BMW M4 GT4 G82 he shares with Tim Leahey, while TekworkX Motorsport / ZW Racing’s Nash Morris guided the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS to third for the session.
Method Motorsport’s Max Geoghegan also set the pace in Qualifying 2 in similar fashion, as the McLaren Artura GT4 driver’s best lap came right at the death, snatching pole position from Gray’s teammate George Miedecke by two tenths of a second with a lap of 1m14.189s.
Going third for the session, a further six tenths off, was Jake Camilleri, who has started life well in the Gomersall Motorsport Ford Mustang GT4 since switching between rounds.
Silver-Am
The Silver-Am Cup had plenty of interesting results occur throughout, with one of the most notable being the Qualifying 1 pole position of Ryder Quinn in the TekworkX / Thunder Buddies BMW M4 GT4 G82, who scored pole position in the final moments of the session.
Keltic Racing’s Matt McCutcheon looked to secure pole at that time in the Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO 2 he shares with Tony Quinn, however Ryder was just seven thousandths of a second faster with his remarable final time of 1m17.380s.
Taking out third for the session just under half a second off was Aaron Cameron in the Multispares Racing Ford Mustang GT4 after he showed plenty of pace in Friday’s Practice and Pre-Qualifying sessions.
Cameron’s teammate Ryan Hansford took pole position for the class in Qualifying 2 with his lap time of 1m16.018s – half a tenth faster than Gomersall Motorsport’s Aaron Seton and Jason Gomersall in the Ford Mustang GT4.
The GWR Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO of Daniel Frougas and Tim Berryman rounded out the top three.
Am
The Am drivers showed plenty of fight against the overall field, with drivers from the class having punched above their weight against their more experienced competitors.
The most notable result was that of Method Motorsport’s Chris Lillis in their Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS, who went fourth fastest in the overall field for Qualifying 2 thanks to a commanding lap of 1m14.932s.
Remarkably, the Qualifying 2 top three were split by just four tenths as Randall Racing’s Jacob Lawrence went second fastest in the BMW M4 GT4 G82, while fellow title contender Shane Smollen guided the second Method Motorsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS to third.
Earlier on in the double qualifying session, Callaghan topped the Am Cup timesheets more comfortably as he went half a second faster than Lawrence, while Smollen was again third fastest.
Monochrome GT4 Australia’s first race of the weekend begins at 1:20pm AEST, with the race to be part of the Shannons SpeedSeries’ live and free coverage on 7plus.